these are the impacts we expect to see over the next 72 hours. we are looking right now for cape hatteras, tropical storm winds for tomorrow night, worst conditions late saturday. ocean city, maryland, same thing, late saturday to noon sunday. thing, late saturday to noon sunday. as we move up we continue to see the impact from philadelphia to new york city, tropical storm winds late saturday, the worst conditions saturday night into sunday evg moving on up to boston. they'll be about 24 hours later from boston to portland. look for tropical force winds sunday morning. the worst conditions will be sunday afternoon. extreme weather conditions, you can expect from cape hatteras, all the way up to new england, coastal flooding, major beach erosion, damaging winds, torrential rains, and we can't even rule out tornadoes as this thing comes up the coast. we'll continue to update you tomorrow morning on "wake up with al" on the weather channel. and the "today" show at 7:00 in the morning. >> all right, al, that storm

path puts a lump in your throat. al roker on the coast of north carolina starting us off. al, thanks. this storm has already taken a good deal of time en route north churning up the bahamas. next's lily luciano was there this morning just as the storm was bearing down. >> reporter: we're now at the height of hurricane irene here in nassau, this is the most severe wind we have gotten so far, we're getting heavy rain and sleet as well that's starting to hit us as we speak right now. objects are falling and flying through the air, we have gotten some street signs that have been coming off their posts as the winds changed directions. a couple of trees have fallen right in front of us. but the storm is getting worse. lily luciano with some of what this storm has been offering in the bahamas today.

as we said, all the forecasts and computer models show the next stop for hurricane irene, the north carolina coast. nbc's mark potter in nags head tonight. mark, good evening. >> reporter: good evening to you, brian. as you can see, there are very few people out here on the beaches today and that's because this is the day that more people here really started taking this storm seriously. many are boarding up and are now leaving for higher ground. with the storm bearing down, the tourists are heading out. during high tourist season, 150,000 visitors have been ordered off the north carolina outer banks, checking out of hotels and packing their cars for an early trip home. >> just feeling the need to be safe and never underestimating a hurricane or the damage. >> reporter: emergency managers fear hurricane irene seen here from space will bring destructive winds and flooding, possibly tearing up homes and roads. >> i don't think we're going to escape this one, i do not. >> reporter: among those leaving and very disappointed was melissa cook from philadelphia, clutching her wedding dress. she and her fiance had planned

to get married saturday at the nags head pier overlookinging the ocean, but irene dashed their plans. >> it's been so much time and so much work and then we're evacuated this morning. >> reporter: some 30,000 residents are also being ordered to evacuate tomorrow. 88-year-old stacy mann is boarding up his house and worries about the direction of the hurricane force winds. >> if the wind blows like it's blowing from north to northwest, we're going to be in for it. >> reporter: richard peterson worries about the powerful ocean storm surge. >> best case is five feet of water and it goes away, worst case is my house is gone. >> this woman runs a rental shop for bikes and kayaks. and hates to see all the tourists and millions of dollars drive away. >> everyone leaves. so there is no income at that point. >> reporter: the only residents not expected to leave are more than 100 wild horses on north carolina barrier islands that have survived lots of storms in the past. as for the bride and groom from

philadelphia, they say they'll now get married in virginia with a good, strong roof to protect them. some locals say they will not be leaving the outer banks and will ride out the hurricane here. but emergency managers say if they do that and they get in trouble, no one will be able to go out and help them. brian? >> all right, mark potter, nags head, north carolina. mark, thanks. this storm arrives while millions of americans are trying to enjoy the ragged end of the summer of 2011. the jersey shore for one is loaded with tourists and beachgoers and home renters and there are dire predictions tonight that it is in for some historic damage. nbc's michelle franzen on the boardwalk in asbury park tonight. michelle, i have got to tell you, we have been staying a few towns south of you where the police department already tonight is warning of breaches on the beach and the water coming up in the bay and there are warnings of possible

inundation in some towns on the jersey shore. >> reporter: that's right, brian, we're already starting to see mandatory evacuations in new jersey late this afternoon. cape may county officials issued those mandatory evacuations for some 750,000 people for the barrier islands beginning today and starting tomorrow morning for all of cape may county. further north here, many people are not used to hurricanes and that's the big problem facing officials is that lack of experience. businesses we talked to today say that they don't plan to board up and sandbag business buildings in the the next day or two. the last big hurricane to hit this area was in 1999, that was floyd, it caused some $45 million in damage and killed six people. new jersey's governor chris christie is not taking any chances, he is contemplating mandatory evacuations, opening shelters in all 21 counties and telling everyone to get ready. >> this is not just going to be

a shore incident, this is going to be a state wide incident the way it's projected now. from a flooding perspective, this could be a 100-year event. so people should not take this lightly. >> reporter: and we could see more mandatory evacuations move up the coast in the next few days, there's some 120 miles of shore here in new jersey. asbury park has enjoyed somewhat of a come back on the map for businesses and tourists and now it looks like hurricane irene too. >> michelle, thanks. here in new york city, the mayor has been on live television tonight talking to the residents. there are a lot of things to be worried about. one urgent concern, a skyscraper under construction at ground zero, lower manhattan, the new one world trade center building.

there are 13 giant cranes working on that building. they're not designed to sustain winds in excess of 65 miles an hour. workers are feverishly trying to secure them tonight. federal officials are also determined not to be caught off guard by irene. nbc's tom costello with us tonight from washington. tom, good evening. >> the government is very concerned about this storm's track, really right up the i-95 corridor. fema always has emergency supplies prepositioned, ice, blankets, cots, food, it's also putting advanced teams into communities now to coordinate with local authorities. i spoke a short time ago with the fema director. >> we also ship things like bottled water, shelf stable meals, infant-children supplies, tarps, things that we have historically known that have been needed in the aftermath of a hurricane. >> we can also report the major airlines are starting to waive the change fees to and from the east coast airports that are likely to be affected.

meanwhi meanwhile amtrac has cancel led all train service south of d.c. for friday, saturday and sunday. another big concern on the east coast, the oil refineries in new virginia, pennsylvania, delaware, new jersey, they produce nearly 80% of the country's gas and diesel fuel. they are in harm's way. the navy has ordered the their ships out to sea where they can better ride out the storm. and last week the national cathedral here in d.c. is establishing a perimeter around the building to protect the public from the falling masonry after the damage from tuesday's earthquake. brian? >> tom costello in washington, d.c. tonight. with us now, weather channel's brian norcross. a veteran hurricane specialist, very mindful of how much of a history maker this storm could be. brian, 1944 had a storm on the jersey shore, cut long beach island in two pieces. it rearranged the map. is that what we're talking about potentially here? >> it's very possible. 1944, a great atlantic hurricane

was actually well offshore and this hurricane is forecast to be closer to the jersey shore. we have been looking at that 1944 hurricane, we have also been looking at an 1821 hurricane which also ran right along the jersey shore and into new york city and caused tremendous flooding all around the fledgling city at that time. >> is there any good model of the spaghetti noodle graphics, the hurricane projections you can cling on to for folks who need a little bit hope? is there anything that's going to come along and steer this thing out, perhaps something coming across the country? >> we don't think that a significant probably hurricane of a lifetime event can be avoided, brian. but it doesn't mean that every single spot is going to get that kind of a disaster. we can't pin down exactly where it's going to be, but the way the u.s. coast kind of juts out and the path the hurricane is on and every indication is that the

atmospheric pattern is going to be when we get to the weekend, we don't see highway a major, major significant hurricane event can be avoided. >> brian norcross, we'll be talking quite a bit on the days ahead. still ahead on our broadcast tonight, the other major stories today, including the man who has in his own way changed our world. the question is what will apple be like without the guy who shaped it, steve jobs. and later, what we're learning about how moammar gadhafi lived. richard engel takes us inside his compound to see what they found.

in his own way steve jobs has changed the world, he made computers work for us, he made our music portable and he taught us to play songs by swirling our fingers in a circular motion and to open a book on the web. steve jobs resigned as ceo yesterday because his health won't let him continue.

a look at the impact from steve jobs tonight. >> reporter: it's hard to remember what computers, music, phones or movies were like before this college dropout set up shop in his parents garage and invented with his buddy's help, a computer you could run in your house. imagine that. >> we worked hard and in ten years apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage to a $2 billion company with 4,000 employees. >> reporter: steve jobs pioneered home computing years before ibm, upended the music business with the ipod and i-tunes, killing cds. the ipad is changing our way of life and film animation pivots around pixar, the studio he bought from george lucas and is the reason we all know who buzz lightyear is. >> to infinity and beyond. >> people think of steve jobs as a tech visionary, but he is a consumer visionary.

he's a visionary for how we use and relate to the products that are going to change our lives, even before we know that they're going to change our lives. >> reporter: jobs impact has come not just from his ability to make products to humanize them. you didn't need a manual to start a macintosh, it just fired up. and the mouse, as big a game changer as any when it came out, had already been invented, jobs is the one who sold it. over the years he's been called difficult, mysterious, quirky, a manager for whom good is never good enough. >> i think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful. >> reporter: some call jobs the greatest industrialist of our time, equal to henry ford or thomas edison, a reputation that sadly has been built as he's confronted his own difficult health problems. >> remembering that you are going to die is the best way i know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. you are already naked, there is no reason not to follow your heart.

>> reporter: jobs is private about his health, but we know he did meet with his board yesterday, he's expected to be an active chairman of the board, brian, but it's unclear for just how long. >> and while we only get to witness so many visionaries per lifetime, think about the business this guy built. >> he made a lot of money for himself and for investors. since '97, apple stock is up 10,000%. if you invested 1,400 bucks back then, you would have $150,000. >> what other company tells us the next device we have to go out and buy. carl, thanks as always. the best way to tell this next story is this, there's one guy in this country rich enough and influential enough to save a bank and that might be what warren buffett did today, bank of america was in trouble and still is, but it's doing better today after buffet bought $5 billion worth of its stock. it's a bet that may pay off handsomely for him, but it also raised the stock price, up

almost 9.5% in one day for bank of america. still ahead here tonight t latest on the path of this hurricane. and overseas richard engel with an extraordinary look inside gadhafi's compound including what may have been a secret escape route.

now to libya tonight where nato has joined the hunt for gadhafi, still at large, no one knows where. there's a deal to release $1.5 billion in assets, frozen in u.s. banks. money the rebel leadership says it needs to pay salaries and basic supplies for the libyan people.

"today" meantime, our chief foreign correspondent richard engel got inside gadhafi's compound in tripoli and saw firsthand what he left behind, including a complex network of tunnels that he may have used to escape the violence happening around him. >> reporter: hundreds of rebels battled gadhafi's loyalists today. rebels advance with all the firepower they had. took away their injured and arrested a suspected mercenary. nearby for the first time, we were able to visit gadhafi's compound. it was from this balcony that gadhafi used to come to address large, cheering crowds. what a different perspective he would have today. it's ransacked, but hints survive of how he lived and how his glory faded. >> this is one of gadhafi's in suite bathrooms, a jacuzzi tub, obviously all the lights are out. but here is his bedroom, and

under all this debris was gadhafi's bed. and 20 feet below, an extensive network of bunkers. people here say gadhafi used these tunnels to move across the city and he may have even used them to escape during the assault. there's a full command and control center here. these are lists of media organizations, cnn, abu dhabi. there is an exit here, a small little porthole that leads outside. the network of tunnels extends for miles. our colleague stephanie gosk saw more. >> there's electricity, there are telephones, it's even wide enough for golf carts that gadhafi used to rides around all the time. it's not clear if he used this one, but he will not be using one any time soon. these stairs lead up from the tums, it must lead up somewhere into gadhafi's house. but it tells how paranoid he was, clearly they sealed it off

for security. >> reporter: the tunnels may have helped gadhafi escape, but now with a bounty on his head, it seems every rebel in libya is looking for him. richard engel, nbc news, tripoli. when we come back, back here in this country, an update on our top story, getting ready for what could be and it's no longer an overstatement, the most devastating storm a lot of people along the east coast have ever seen.

an update tonight, we want to update you on the arrival of hurricane irene. we're talking about 16 million americans being impacted up the even seaboard. this also means that new york city, which doesn't get hurricanes may be getting a rare hurricane make landfall. jim cantore is on lower manhattan for us tonight. jim, i want to show you a picture, i actually took this photo, i was stuck in traffic trying to get into the lincoln trouble today, this is just lower manhattan, the fortress, it looks like the city of oz. this is lower manhattan, a fortress t mayor was talking about possibly evacuated 270,000 new yorkers, there's talk of nypd rowboats. how is this all possibly going to happen because a lot of it is low-lying areas in the city of

new york. >> reporter: it's kind of unthinkable and hard to imagine, back in 1960, right where i'm standing there was seven feet of water over my head from hurricane donna. that's a storm that went to our east. so there's very little room for error. the mayor did stress a lot of things, five states with states of emergency, to give you an idea of the tone of what's going to be happening here. they're urging people already in low-lying areas to evacuate. saturday at 8:00 a.m., they'll make a decision on zone a, that includes possible the hospitals and here in battery park as well. mass transit, when you think about all the mass transit here that you're talking about as well, partially or all shut down. that is just hard to believe. this will be a multihazard hurricane by the time all is said and done will be our 10th billion disaster of 2011.

>> and as brian norcross said, the potential to be the hurricane of a lifetime for those in its path. jim cantore, we're going to be spending a lot of time with you over the next couple of days, the best coverage will be on the weather channel. that's it for us. we'll join you from this storm a campus on edge tonight after a series of attacks on women. good evening, everyone. thanks for joining us. i'm janelle wang. flush flush flush>> uc berkeley police say three men were arrested for separate attacks on women in a span of